


time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see

by aesterismo



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesterismo/pseuds/aesterismo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like the stream of life which connects the ones who’ve passed to those who carry the burden of existence, Ja’far learns it is not weakness which bade him to take the hand held out to him that time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	time unfolds the petals for our eyes to see

**Author's Note:**

  * For [choir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/choir/gifts).



> Nonobligatory music for listening to while reading: "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng (the song which inspired the title) and/or "Atlantis" by Ellie Goulding.

They have no idea.

When the carpets return to their rightful places, crowned jewelry and decorative robes hung back in their rightful places, the masquerade ends.  Masks dropped, defenses laid down. 

So the hour of honesty begins again, just as the moon’s cycle begins anew each wane and wax.

And this king is an honest man.

In front of the crowds, the masses, the expectant citizens.  They adore the one who rules over them, provided shelter and respite to their every entreaty. 

They adore him because they do not know their king’s true face.

Sometimes, he is a boy affixed with a man’s shape.  Sometimes, he is a wizened traveler.  There is a certain kind of wanderlust in his gaze, ever-ardent, dreams of lives not lived but also unforgotten. 

Curtains drawn, he is a decidedly different king.  For this man is no ordinary king.

A king such as this, who allows himself to be led, a king who does not protest to letting another reign over him – does he deserve such a title? 

A king who chooses to rule by his heart, such a fickle device – does he deserve to wear such a crown, to carry the weight of such an extraordinary monarchy? 

For this is a king whose voice which does not call for its subjects nor ask them to deliver its commands – a wave of his hand and they are at his side, knowing that such a king who will do his country wishes does indeed exists.

Such a king indeed exists, they say; few who have yet to bear witness would hardly believe.

Such a king exists, Ja’far knows, with a voice that is much kinder than he deserves.

A hushed cadence, just short of beseeching. 

A grazing touch of the flat of broad palm to cheek, the other clutched tight, laced with the other’s hand – lying unguarded like teenagers rather than full grown and perched at the head of the pillowing bedcovers with another man, who, however small in build, could pin him to the ground with a blade at his throat in an instant, tie him down faster than the mere utterance of his name.  

A kindness, echoed by a penchant for adopting all sorts of strays along his travels, which brought him here, _here_ , as the king’s most trusted adviser and scribe and personal attendant and lifelong companion all rolled into one, bound by a kind of obligation which defies commonplace understanding.

And perhaps, he thinks, that alone is enough. 

(To defy explanation, to confound the masses, to garner questions never answered.  This underserving kindness notwithstanding, it’s enough for the world to simply know such a king exists. 

And so does he, in turn.)

* * *

Someday, perhaps, they will look back on these things and laugh.

The solidarity which stems from a familiar rage within – even in the worst of circumstances. 

The compassion which lies between balled fists, the clean incision which leaves no scar yet remains an instant indelible – forgotten, perhaps, and not exactly forgiven.

The earnest hope which sparks the question, the request – to lay down his dagger, to return to whence he came if not there to exact the dirty deed, to return?  To his death, surely, if he returned without the young excursionist’s head – and the tighter hold on a trembling grip. 

 _It’s alright_ , those eyes seem to know, seek to remind him, _you’ll be safe here_. 

It is a foolish sentiment at best. 

A hope senseless at its worst. 

But it nevertheless exists – **hope**.  It is this simple hope which impels the assassin to send his final farewell to the life he once led before he can blink back the tears already forming at the hand which reaches for him. 

The first hand he can recall at the tender age of ten, reborn, at that very moment.

Ja’far, he is named: one who runs through life like the rushing water in a raging stream.

Emancipated, he cannot recall what he was called before this.  He cares not to reflect on the past, least of all on those times. 

Youthful recollection plays tricks on the wary but it is also a curtain of glamor, a way to continue living without holding on too tightly to memories. 

But perhaps it’s better this way, to leave those buried recollections to nightmarish dreams, apparitions which are hazier than the sandstorm of new discoveries.  Unremarkable things, frightening things, simple discoveries.  All are precious treasures, worth far more than the wealth of this palace, the wealth of the small-scale legacy that grows by the day. 

Like the stream of life which connects the ones who’ve passed to those who carry the burden of existence, Ja’far learns it is not weakness which bade him to take the hand held out to him that time.

It is the power which brings humans to hope, to have and to hold, a thing of wonder. 

He has both a name and a new identity.  They both gain new roles.   Ja’far is the one who gathers supplies, surveys the land, logs the happening of their journeys – a crucial support role. 

Then, slowly but steadily, Ja’far soon becomes a “partner.”  

Ja’far, who earns his household vessel with his own strength of will and serpent-quick wit.

Ja’far, who uses his fight for the sake of something greater than they ever realized, as each dungeon cleared makes him less inclined to flight. 

Ja’far, who becomes far more than a tool for fighting because this man, _this man_ , held his hand out to give him that second  chance, offering a place to stand on his own two feet at the frightening new heights of a pinnacle of something strange and new but not at all disagreeable.

Never before has Ja’far understood the stories about a smile and how it warms one from the inside out to be able to share it.

The two of them made quite the pair, in the end. 

All of Sindria who knew of them speak of them in this offhand manner.  It is met with laughter, naturally, to know little of their meeting other than the knowledge that ten years ago sparked the hope of a new age, a new legacy, for their humble but still developing country.  To know that Sindria, at its very center, was born from the many chronicles, the “adventures” both published and privately discussed, which made up the history of the island nation.

To know of Sinbad and Ja’far – across the ocean, through hearsay, from a chance meeting – is not to know their histories.

Sinbad, the man of the seven seas born into to become a king among kings, born into humility, who got into a fistfight with his destiny and emerged a young but altogether capable ruler, far from those born into royalty with his callused hands and battle-worn body and a mind equipped to relate to the world-weary denizens. 

Ja’far, once an orphan who ensnared his targets like a snake would prey, wrapped tight before crushed, who learned to weave words and garner the means to form a new kind of empire, on as grandiose as his king’s ideal, out of a learned duty and a promise built upon a rare brand of reciprocity in the realm of courtly affairs.

Someday, perhaps, they will learn of these things and ask _why_. 

And someday, perhaps, when their predecessors live to tell their tales – well-attended attendants and bedchamber maids and adopted charges like children alike – there will be answers.

For now, the answers remain as elusive as the swift tides which sweep away all remaining down, erase whoever Ja’far and Sinbad were before they ruled (together and yet not) the country which carried on little but its founding king and the stories passed on long after he leaves this world to its name.

* * *

Had he the power, Ja’far would grant his king’s every wish. 

The years sweep by and flow through him like the river’s bends – momentary, fleeting things.  Yet Ja’far continues to learn and grow with each passing day, a life preferable to the stagnant existence he imagines would have awaited him if he had never taken Sinbad’s hand that day. 

The alternative lives, the other possibilities.  Of course, he’s entertained them all. 

Like any welcome guest to the palace, offered lodging for guests on extended stay and inevitably compelled to leave.

A life without paperwork is not for him. 

Contrary to popular belief, he does not mind the bookkeeping.  It keeps his calculative and deciphering skills busy, his mind active. 

It defines his existence, every ink mark on paper, to roll scroll after scroll, to record every painstaking detail: expense after expense, surplus after deficit.  It behooves him, really, to make use of his well-used office chair, crafted by the most skilled artisans at Sinbad’s (a paltry sum, the king insisted on the eve of Ja’far’s twentieth birthday, compared to all that the adviser had done for him already) most eager commission. 

It is one of many gifts which Ja’far feels, knows, that he will never be able to offer compensation for.

Sin, he thinks with the telltale twitch of his lips, will never cease to amaze him.  He is a king, perhaps, but also a boy.  Seeking new locales, new recruits for his cause. 

Longing to travel, despite having long exhausted his need to do so.

More often than not, Ja’far dreams of his king while away.  Fantastical scenarios fusing with fond reminiscence.  They are but fanciful visions, but welcome visions nevertheless.   He likes to think of the old superstition that he is asleep dreaming while Sinbad – somewhere, miles upon miles and oceans away, on a ship bound to some mysterious locale not yet traversed – lies awake thinking of him.

Sometimes, the dreams are simple.

He chases after Sinbad in a frequent but confounding one.  They run like toddlers through gardens as extensive as the country’s long-reaching meadows, ducking past hedges and forget-me-nots and gardenias in some earnest game.  Chasing, chasing, chasing – until, that is, Ja’far catches onto his coattails just before he awakens with a start, lips parted as though he were about to say something. 

Though he journals such dreams and looks back on them after rousing before sunrise, seeking answers to no avail.    

Then there are the dreams he does not write down, the dreams which remain with or without such exposition.

Dreams of decadence, of holding tight and being held.  Dreams of entanglement and summer’s slick heat, bare skin taut and far too pliant beneath his fingertips.  Storm fire lit in those dark eyes, expectant, wanton.  Eyes he knows too well and yet this, this exhilarating force that eludes him, like magnetism adjoins them, bids their lips meld together and they vanish, blending into one entity, at the slow rise and retreat of endless waves of the sea.

Though he wakes with a start before the heated exhale of Sinbad’s name transforms into his own, Ja’far knows the tangled sheets damp with the traces of heady arousal are no illusion, know the very real and very physical reminder of it every waking instance he considers the dreams further.

And so he chooses not to, buries himself in work full-force. 

When the other advisors and servants ask, he tells them it’s because he needs to catch up before Sin returns. 

When Sinbad at last returns from overseas, offering frenzied extol after reluctantly-accepted souvenirs from his travels, Ja’far finds it easier still to slip back into the new skin of his role, the guarded adviser’s robes and overcoats.  One after another, the layers conceal the scars beneath, the healing tissue beneath with each improved reason and excuse to hold himself back. 

Because, surely, they were such good friends that nothing need change at this point. 

Because they were unsuited to one another, dissimilarities hardly counterpoint to complementary.  Because they were under the scrutiny of public image, no matter how Sinbad may claim the public’s opinion remains uninfluenced. 

Because human beings, however malleable, are slaves to their emotions.

Had he the power, Ja’far would grant all of his king’s greatest wishes – and his own. 

But power, in possession by the greedy, has no place in Sindria.  Such desire has no place here, Ja’far knows, beside a king such as his. 

If the time came where he too must be proven unworthy of Sinbad’s presence, then he would gladly grant his friend (a most trusted companion, a partner, someone who deserved the truth and equality he gave others without asking for anything in return) that much as well. 

All at his king’s command.

* * *

So it confounds him, leaves him flummoxed to this very day, why Sinbad agreed.

In the first place, they were…close enough to begin with. 

The well-intentioned jokes were one thing.  Pisti and Drakon were the repeat offenders of those, though enlisting Hinahoho and Spartos seemed to further spur all the Generals on where rounds of laughter were concerned. 

Then, there were the constant innuendo about their ‘old married couple’ status.  That was entirely Sharrkan’s fault, which caused – no sooner than he and Yamuraiha got started (it was perhaps one of the few things they could agree upon) – even Masrur to offer up stoic rejoinders of his own.

That Sinbad nearly never commented on such matters should have been Ja’far’s first clue.

But Ja’far’s stubborn ego kept on: if they knew one another so well already, then why ask for more? 

Never mind the countless occasions where they burrowed beneath makeshift blankets in their younger days so close that he would end up resting on Sinbad’s chest with a millimeter’s nudge and Sinbad could likely count every freckle on the bridge of his nose.  Never mind the innumerable moments where Sinbad leaned on him for support, stumbling through the stone gates into the inner walls drunk and smelling of cheap perfume, letting Ja’far bring him all the way up to his bedchambers and thanking him with the most sobering and genuine smile for “always being around.” 

Never mind that Ja’far chose this path for himself, made the decision as a child and hadn’t strayed from it since.  Hadn’t regretted it before he realized, through gradual actualization, that Sin meant much more to him than any friend ever should.

And yet.  There were things even Ja’far could not account for.

Sinbad, who never failed to astonish him.  Sinbad, who hadn’t a drop of alcohol in his system tonight.  Sinbad, who grabbed him by the sleeve just before he turned to depart from the Silver Tower and asked him to stay for the night.

To stay with _him_.

While they lie beside each other – like countless times before, when Ja’far was much smaller and Sinbad (still) bigger, staying up to all hours when they ought to rest for the next day’s trek to a larger campsite or, if they were lucky, a village – they talk. 

It’s idle conversation, no less noteworthy than anything else that takes up either of their days, but it keeps them awake.  Keeps the tension at bay while nonetheless drawing their shivering forms ever closer. 

Distracts Ja’far from the root of the problem – his eternal problem – until Sinbad pulls the covers over them and tucks the down-stuffed quilts with absolute care around him. 

Something about it moves him, the way Sinbad tucks Ja’far in like he had over and over again when their bond was still new, grinning like the doting and infuriatingly kind person he was at the heart of things, all his selfishness and whimsical flights of fancy irrelevant by comparison. 

Grinning like a fool.  At _him_.

So Ja’far, like any insensible and well-versed adult would be naught to do, kisses him.

It’s quick and he almost misses the mark entirely (a firm grasp on the collar of his under robes is all it takes to pull him down just enough to yank him down to eye level) and Sinbad doesn’t pull away at first. 

When he does, it isn’t hesitance which mars his features like Ja’far expects.  He looks as dazed as Ja’far feels, in fact.

Why had he given in, good gods, to such an impulse? 

Silence permeates the space between. 

For all the adviser can surmise, the great king of Sindria may very well have gone into a state of permanent shock.  He more than looks the part of a petrified willow, affixed to the spot with his mouth half-ajar and unrelenting vice-grip on the covers immobile.

But, of course, Ja’far is not one for patience – so he does the exact opposite of what his better judgment (to hell and back with that; such nonsense is for failed stories that his schedule offers no time to write) tells him to do and kisses Sinbad again.

This time, he gets an unmistakable response. 

Sinbad all but tears the cover off him to pull him close, sinks against him with such fervency it elicits a shuddering gasp from his adviser as hands search for one another in the settling night. 

Ja’far pulls him down by the hair, tugging him down to meet his lips again as soon as the taller man tries to pull away.  He’s heaving for breath at this point – they both are – but neither seems particularly inclined to stop here, not while Sinbad holds him, **clings** to him, back to waist to stomach to face, forms flush and rocking against one another. 

Not now, hardly, not when this is far better than any dream Ja’far’s ever dreamed before,

It’s only after they both pull back for air that Ja’far looks at him – long hair disheveled, mouth glistening with the remnants of their earlier enthusiasm and neckline lined with small love bites (perhaps he should apologize for those, but it was Sinbad’s fault for leaving himself open in the first place, really) – and Sinbad _laughs_.

“We’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”  It occurs to Ja’far, then, that he hasn’t heard his king hasn’t laughed like that, so giddy and incredulous, since they were teenagers.  “Not even to the people of Sindria, but to the servants.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to whip up another one of your famous stories,” Ja’far murmurs, beckoning the smirking king back beneath the covers, “to get us out of trouble.”

“Oh, I wasn’t concerned about us getting in trouble for this.”  To Ja’far’s quirked eyebrow, Sinbad presses a light peck to his forehead while a wayward hand glides across the crook of Ja’far’s hipbone.  “I was, however, thinking of the bedchamber maid’s who’ll no doubt have to…clean up after us, tomorrow morning.”

Ja’far tips his head back and _laughs_ , not minding at all the soft hum it soon fades into nor the growing comfort that settles in his chest at Sinbad’s fingers slipping down lower still; encourages it, really, with a firm kiss to the start of the bruising marks along his collarbone. 

“Fair enough,” Ja’far acquiesces, meeting his smile and traveling palms with matched vigor.  “Then I suppose we can spend the night…taking responsibility for our actions, so to speak.”

There’s an echo to their laughter for the rest of the evening, needless to say, resonant enough to keep away any other visitors to the Silver Tower until morning’s light.


End file.
